


A Ghost Story

by Songspinner



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Crush, Blue Lions Students-centric (Fire Emblem), Crushes, Diners, F/M, Getting Together, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunting, M/M, S'mores
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27322162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songspinner/pseuds/Songspinner
Summary: Annette jumps up from her seat. “Come on, Felix! Dance with me!” She grabs his wrist and pulls him toward the jukebox across the room, ignoring his halfhearted protests.“Annette, I can’t just...dance on command.” His face burns, and he can practically feel Sylvain’s knowing gaze and stupid grin from the other end of the diner.She lets go of him and starts moving to the rhythm. “Why not? You dance on stage all the time, what’s the difference?”“I--that’s aperformance.This is…”“Fun! Come on, pleeeaaase?”Felix sighs. He’s starting to suspect that he’s physically incapable of turning her down for anything. “Fine.”He grudgingly admits to himself, once they get started, that thisisfun--mostly because every time he tosses in some slightly more interesting dance move, she beams at him with those sparkling blue eyes of hers that could outshine the sun. He almost forgets anyone else is there, absorbed in her twinkling laughter and clever footwork.A particularly complicated one prompts her to ask him to teach it to her, and he’s just in the middle of breaking it down for her when the lights abruptly go out.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29
Collections: Fodlan Frights Halloween Exchange 2020





	A Ghost Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpaceBunBun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceBunBun/gifts).



> This fic is a gift for AO3 user [SpaceBunBun](/users/%5BSpaceBunBun%5D/) for the Fodlan's Fright Gift Exchange 2020! I hope you enjoy it!

“Sylvain, _what_ are you wearing?”

“A costume! This _is_ a costume party, Felix.”

“No, you’re wearing a towel.”

“Come on, can’t you guess who I am?” Sylvain hops up from the booth to plant both fists on his hips and grin widely. “Hello, ladies!”

“...you’re the _Old Spice Guy?_ ” Annette, in her jester’s outfit and jingling hat, bursts out laughing.

“Please tell me you’re wearing something under the towel,” Felix groans.

“Want to come find out for yourself?” Sylvain winks.

“Oh my god, I’m leaving.”

“You are not!” Annette turns to Ashe, whose impressively accurate tin foil armor has the unmistakable look of Mercedes’ handiwork, and Dedue, who’s mostly dressed as usual in a crisp white shirt and black pants except he’s also wearing a (plastic) golden crown and a fuzzy blanket-turned-cape. “Aww, you match! Dedue as the king and Ashe as his loyal knight.”

“It was Ashe’s idea,” says Dedue with a small, fond smile.

“That is so cute!”

Ashe grins, even as his cheeks flush slightly pink. “Thanks, Annette! Dedue and Mercedes did most of the work on my ‘armor,’ though, heh.”

“Well, you look amazing. You too, Mercie! Is that...are you a cat?” It isn’t exactly the typical Halloween black cat costume; the bodysuit she wears is fuzzy and purple, but the ears and tail are clearly feline, so Annette feels pretty good about her guess.

Mercedes smiles, passing out Hershey’s kisses from the bowl on the table. “That’s right.”

“Whew, good thing you didn’t do that after all, huh, Felix?”

“She makes a much better cat anyway,” Felix mutters, fixing his gaze on a ketchup bottle two tables down.

“So instead you’re...the Lone Musketeer?” Sylvain pops his chocolate into his mouth. “That’s kinda sad, actually.”

“I’d rather be a lone one than have two idiots following me around.”

“It’s too bad Dimitri and Ingrid couldn’t make it,” Mercedes says. “They could have been musketeers two and three!”

“They’re not coming? Aw.” Annette steals Sylvain’s seat beside Mercedes and an extra kiss from the bowl. “So what’s on the Molinaro’s Diner party agenda?”

“Oh, were we supposed to have an agenda?” Ashe looks at Dedue, who shrugs. “I don’t think we really had any plans, other than pie and s’mores, and listening to Mercedes tell ghost stories.”

“I thought you hated ghost stories?” Felix debates whether to go stand near Annette or whether that would be too unsubtle...best to stay here, he thinks. For now.

Ashe pales just a little. “Well…”

“It’s Halloween, Felix, we’re _supposed_ to let Mercie scare us!” Annette beams at Mercedes. “Don’t worry, Ashe, we got this. And if you get _too_ scared, I’m sure your husband would be glad to comfort you. Right, Dedue?”

“Of course,” Dedue says, as though doing so is literally his job.

“Um, anyway…” Ashe stands, flushing to his ears. “Who wants some pie? Mercedes made pumpkin and pecan, and Dedue and I made apple.”

“Ooh, me!” Annette raises her hand. “I want to try them all!”

“Great! And don’t worry, Felix.” Ashe and Dedue slip out of the booth and head for the kitchen. “We made a little one without sugar, too, just for you.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Felix opens his mouth again to ask whether they need any help, but he’s startled into silence by the jukebox suddenly coming to life with blaring synthesizers. He whirls to find Mercedes paging through the songs with a little pile of quarters sitting in front of her on the table...and giggling at him, as “Thriller” starts to play over the stereo.

Annette jumps up from her seat. “Come on, Felix! Dance with me!” She grabs his wrist and pulls him toward the jukebox across the room, ignoring his halfhearted protests.

“Annette, I can’t just...dance on command.” His face burns, and he can practically feel Sylvain’s knowing gaze and stupid grin from the other end of the diner.

She lets go of him and starts moving to the rhythm. “Why not? You dance on stage all the time, what’s the difference?”

“I--that’s a _performance_. This is…”

“Fun! Come on, pleeeaaase?”

Felix sighs. He’s starting to suspect that he’s physically incapable of turning her down for anything. “Fine.”

He grudgingly admits to himself, once they get started, that this _is_ fun--mostly because every time he tosses in some slightly more interesting dance move, she beams at him with those sparkling blue eyes of hers that could outshine the sun. He almost forgets anyone else is there, absorbed in her twinkling laughter and clever footwork.

A particularly complicated one prompts her to ask him to teach it to her, and he’s just in the middle of breaking it down for her when the lights abruptly go out.

Annette shrieks. The music slows to a low, incomprehensible drawl as the record spins to a gradual stop. Felix wills his pulse to slow down with it. “Annette?” he hisses quietly. “Are you okay?”

“Felix!” Her shrill whisper is closer than he expected her to be. “What happened?”

“The lights went out.”

“I know that!” Hands suddenly grab at his arm, and he bites his tongue to keep from yelping as he recognizes that Annette’s clinging to him. He swallows. Annette’s _clinging_ to him. _Calm down, Fraldarius, she’s just freaking out and you happen to be here._ He raises his voice to call, “Sylvain?”

No response comes.

“M-Mercie?” Annette tries. Nothing. She stage-whispers again, “Felix, what do we do?”

“Calm down. Just wait, Dedue will reset the fuses.”

She takes a few too-hurried breaths. He can feel the warmth of them through his shirt sleeve and suppresses a slight shiver. “Okay,” Annette says, her voice a little too high-pitched. “Okay. Just wait. That’s easy, right?”

“It’ll be even easier if you turn on your phone light.” He digs both phones out of his pockets and hands her one of them--hers is the bigger one, he knows that, because she updates her phone regularly and he hasn’t done so in at least four years.

“...oh, right.” She ducks her head, chagrined at having forgotten smartphones were a thing in her sudden panic.

With both of their lights brightening their surroundings, Felix suggests, “Let’s go track down Sylvain and Mercedes. They probably went to the kitchen to find Dedue.” He takes a step back toward the other end of the restaurant and then freezes as Annette lets go of his arm and grasps tightly at his hand instead. Now she’s _holding his hand_.

“...Felix? Is--is something wrong? Why did you stop? Are you okay? Is there--”

Felix jerks himself out of his embarrassing stupor and nods. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine. Come on.”

They carefully thread their way through the maze of tables and chairs in the dark, with Felix’s steady phone light and Annette’s shaky one to keep them from tripping over anything. They only make it about halfway across the enormous room--how did Felix never notice just how _big_ this place is before?--before it’s Annette’s turn to freeze with a gasp. “Did you hear that?” she whispers.

“Hear what?”

Right on the heels of his question, a faint and unintelligible susurrus drifts to his ear from behind them. “...I thought that was the wind. But you’re right, it’s...not.” The sound reaches him again, almost like an echo. He glances back the way they came, shining his light around, but he sees nothing. “Sylvain?” he tries again--no dice.

“Let’s get out of here!” Annette tugs on his hand as she hightails it to the door leading outside over his quiet protests. He gives up quickly on trying to stop her, instead shining his light forward to brighten their way until they reach the door and Annette pushes on it.

...it doesn’t budge.

“What?” Felix lets go of her hand (albeit reluctantly) to push harder, and then to inspect the door. “It’s locked. We’d need the employee key to open it.”

“Wh-why would Dedue and Ashe lock us in?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if they _didn’t? ”_

Felix frowns harder. “Who else would have locked it?”

“What if...what if the diner is _haunted?_ _”_ Her whisper is once again echoed by others, indistinct and distant, and her eyes in the light of his phone are wide with terror.

“There’s no such thing. Ghosts aren’t real, Annette.”

“Then how do you explain all of this? And why hasn’t Dedue turned the power back on yet!?”

“How should I know?” Felix gives the door one last kick of irritation and backs away, shining his light toward the end of the diner where they left Sylvain and Mercedes what feels like hours ago, even though it’s only been maybe ten minutes. As far as he can see, the corner is empty, but he can’t see very clearly.

He’s about to reach back for Annette’s hand again when a deafening shriek not a foot from his ear has him leaping out of his skin and flinching back with a yell. “What, what’s wrong!?”

“Look…” Annette’s faint voice is shaky as she points to a spot above the door, training her light on it. Felix does too, and for a moment he can’t breathe. Hanging there on a hook on the wall meant for decorations is a towel. The same towel Sylvain was wearing. ...stained with something red.

Felix feels lightheaded as he turns toward the dark of the restaurant and shouts, “Sylvain! Answer me, damn you!” He doesn’t like how loud and desperate he sounds, but the discomfort pales by comparison to his dawning horror as he still receives no response.

“What are we going to do?” Annette whispers softly. “What if s-something happened to the others, too? Mercie…”

“I don’t know,” Felix snaps, much harsher than he intends. He can’t think straight. Terror has its claws clenched around his mind, squeezing out anything else other than the overwhelming need to _protect Annette_. Without thinking, he lets go of her hand only to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her close. “I mean...we need to call someone. For help. I’ll call Dimitri.”

He clutches Annette like he can’t survive without her and unlocks his phone, but before he can even finish opening his contacts, he jumps as Annette suddenly steps away from him and calls into the darkness beyond their lights with her hands balled into fists: “All right, that’s it!” He searches the corner she faces and spots them, too--a pair of unblinking eyes and a wide, manic grin glowing an eerie green in the dark, with no face to carry them, as the creepy susurrus reaches their ears again. “If you _are_ a ghost, you can just get out of here right now, because we’re not scared of you!” Felix is impressed at how believable that sounds, even if he’s close enough to hear the tremor in it, too.

“Annette, what are you _doing?_ ” he hisses, abruptly afraid that if she isn’t safely in his grasp, something else will snatch her up and whisk her away into the gloom, never to be seen again. “It’s not a ghost, that’s not a thing!”

“Come on, Felix, you have to tell it you’re not afraid, too!” she whispers back. “If we show no fear, it’ll go away--I read that once!”

“I’m not going to yell at shadows. I’m calling Dimitri.”

His finger is hovering above his contacts list, ready to scroll down to the Bs, when he and Annette both yelp and grab at each other, startled by the deep, wicked laugh that rings out across the diner--

Oh. The lights are back on. Felix blinks rapidly and squints as he realizes before his racing heartbeat does that the laughter is just...the end of Thriller. The jukebox has spun up again, too.

And then there’s _another_ bout of laughter, but this one is more breathless and obnoxious than deep and wicked. He and Annette both stand there in vague shock as they take in the view before them: Sylvain, doubled over laughing (and thankfully still wearing his towel), and Mercedes with a now-complete costume including the Cheshire Cat mask she wears...with glow-in-the-dark eyes and teeth.

And _then_ he and Annette both realize at once that they’re still holding onto each other, and their faces burn simultaneously as they hastily break apart, muttering apologies. Fortunately, Felix has the perfect distraction. “ _Sylvain!_ You idiot! I can’t believe you.”

“I’m--I’m sorry…” Sylvain sputters between uncontrollable bursts of mirth.

“No you’re not,” Felix snarls.

“Mercie, how _could_ you?” Annette cries. “And you! Sylvain, you’re _evil_ , the most evil, rotten jerk on the face of the Earth!”

“Hey!” Sylvain finally manages to get himself under control and gives them a wounded pout. “Come on, you have to admit that in hindsight, it was funny.”

“I don’t have to do shit.” Felix crosses his arms in a mortified huff.

Mercedes giggles, pulling off her mask. _She_ at least has the grace to look appropriately apologetic. “I’m so sorry, Annie, Felix. But it _is_ Halloween, and you were already expecting a frightening ghost story. We just made the story about you!”

“And apparently, when you two get scared, you get handsy.” Sylvain winks, prompting the both of them to splutter incoherently and flush so hard Felix thinks it wouldn’t be so bad if the whole building came down around them right now.

“That’s it. I’m going home.” Felix storms back toward the door, but only gets halfway there before he remembers that it’s locked. “...give me the key, Sylvain. How the hell did you get Dedue and Ashe to agree to this inanity?”

The two of them round the corner from the direction of the kitchen just then, hand in hand. Dedue looks the same way Dedue always looks, but Ashe could have been a ghost himself for the pallor of his face. “We didn’t,” Ashe admits, embarrassed. “Sylvain snuck the keys out of my bag when I wasn’t looking. They got us, too.”

“Then why didn’t you answer us when we yelled?” Annette demands.

“We didn’t hear you.” Dedue shrugs. “The kitchen door is thick.”

Sylvain pulls the keys out...from beneath his towel, oh God, where was he keeping those?...and tosses them to Dedue, who catches them without hesitation and moves to the door to unlock it. He pulls down the spare towel, stained with what Felix can now easily see is ketchup. He’s going to murder Sylvain for real, he swears.

“We certainly won’t stop you, Felix, if you want to leave,” says Mercedes, “but we promise that’s the end of the haunting for tonight! We’d love it if you stayed.”

“Yeah!” Ashe seems to be quickly calming down--but of course, _he_ was being haunted with his husband, not with...a good friend who he happens to probably have a huge crush on. The memory of holding Annette in his arms and having her clutch him so tightly brings the heat back to Felix’s face all over again. “We were going to make s’mores in the brick oven, you should join us!”

“I don’t like sweets--”

“Oh, Felix, come on,” Annette pleads, reaching out to grab his wrist. He stiffens, and then she stiffens, and they both try to ignore the knowing eyes on them. Annette clears her throat and lets go. “Um...I’ll eat your share of the s’mores if you help me roast the marshmallows, how’s that?”

Felix rubs his face with a hand. “Fine. But one more ‘spooky’ sound out of you, Sylvain, and I’ll roast _you_ in the oven instead.”

Sylvain lifts his hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t act like this was all my doing! It was Mercedes’ idea in the first place.”

“Yeah, but we can’t get mad at Mercie,” says Annette. “It’s impossible.”

“But you can get mad at me?”

“Easily,” says Felix with a smug smirk.

“Aww.”

The six of them crowd around the brick oven in the kitchen as Dedue lights the fire and chatter resumes as they roast marshmallows with increasingly sticky fingers. Felix, true to his word, sits beside Annette and gives her all the s’mores he makes except the one she convinces him to try. She makes it herself, putting only one little square of chocolate and half a marshmallow between the graham crackers before handing it to him. “See, it’s less sweet, just for you.”

“Um...thanks.”

When he reaches out to take it from her gooey fingers, it sticks to them. Her slight, nimble fingers brush his. He looks up at her with a red-faced stare and sees the same expression mirrored back at him, before Annette giggles nervously and whispers, “I, uh...I guess Sylvain wasn’t _wrong_...about the, the hands...thing.”

His heart stops and he drops dead immediately. At least, that’s what it feels like. “I...guess not. For once.” A beat of silence passes, in which neither of them lets go of the s’more nor moves their fingers away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“No no, it’s fine!” The words spill out so hurriedly as she waves off his concern with her other hand that they come out as a bit of a squeak, before she’s back to whispering again. “I mean, um...it was...kind of nice, actually. Is. Now, too.”

“It is?” _Wait--_ “No, I mean, it is. I...agree.”

“Well...okay, then.” Annette glances at the little dessert sandwich between them. “I don’t think I can pry my fingers off this thing, so um...you might have to…”

“...okay.” Felix takes his hand away slowly, only to lean forward the few inches it takes to bite into the s’more as she holds it. She watches him with anticipation as he chews and swallows. “...it’s actually not that bad.”

Her smile makes the sun come up indoors in the middle of the night. “I knew you’d like it! Here--”

He leans in to take another bite, all the while so aware of how close she is. The little bells that hang from her jester’s hat jingle as his head bumps into them. Miraculously, everyone else in the room leaves them alone, which is a good thing because Felix has nearly forgotten they’re there, and any interruption would probably have him awkwardly leaping out the window. Instead, he eats the entire s’more from Annette’s fingers, while unbeknownst to either of them, Sylvain and Mercedes look on, quietly patting each other on the back for a job well done.


End file.
